Thus did I speak, and always more softly; for I was afraid of mine own thoughts, and arrear-thoughts. Then, suddenly did I hear a dog howl near me.

Had I ever heard a dog howl thus? My thoughts ran back. Yes! When I was a child, in my most distant childhood—

Then did I hear a dog howl thus. And saw it also, with hair bristling, its head upwards, trembling in the stillest midnight, when even dogs believe in ghosts—

So that it excited my commiseration. For just then went the full moon, silent as death, over the house; just then did it stand still, a glowing globe—at rest on the flat roof, as if on some one’s property—

Thereby had the dog been terrified: for dogs believe in thieves and ghosts. And when I again heard such howling, then did it excite my commiseration once more.

Where was now the dwarf? And the gateway? And the spider? And all the whispering? Had I dreamt? Had I awakened? ’Twixt rugged rocks did I suddenly stand alone, dreary in the dreariest moonlight.

But there lay a man! And there! The dog leaping, bristling, whining—now did it see me coming—then did it howl again, then did it cry—had I ever heard a dog cry so for help?

And verily, what I saw, the like had I never seen. A young shepherd did I see, writhing, choking, quivering, with distorted countenance, and with a heavy black serpent hanging out of his mouth.

Had I ever seen so much loathing and pale horror on one countenance? He had perhaps gone to sleep? Then had the serpent crawled into his throat—there had it bitten itself fast.

My hand pulled at the serpent, and pulled—in vain! I failed to pull the serpent out of his throat. Then there cried out of me: ‘Bite! Bite!

Its head off! Bite!’—so cried it out of me; my horror, my hatred, my loathing, my pity, all my good and my bad cried with one voice out of me.

Ye daring ones around me! Ye venturers and adventurers, and whoever of you have embarked with cunning sails on unexplored seas! Ye enigma-enjoyers!

Solve unto me the enigma that I then beheld, interpret unto me the vision of the lonesomest one!

For it was a vision and a foresight: what did I then behold in parable? And who is it that must come some day?

Who is the shepherd into whose throat the serpent thus crawled? Who is the man into whose throat all the heaviest and blackest will thus crawl?

The shepherd however bit as my cry had admonished him; he bit with a strong bite! Far away did he spit the head of the serpent, and sprang up—

No longer shepherd, no longer man—a transfigured being, a light-surrounded being that laughed! Never on earth laughed a man as he laughed!

O my brethren, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter—and now gnaweth a thrist at me, a longing that is never allayed.

My longing for that laughter gnaweth at me. Oh, how can I still endure to live! And how could I endure to die at present!